


forever fall'n

by batter



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Night Terrors, ambigious bullshit, because i'm a pretentious ASSHOLE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 17:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14169510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batter/pseuds/batter
Summary: Another day, another haunted house to set up camp in.Ryan sleeps, and then he doesn't.





	forever fall'n

The wooden floorboards creak under their weight as they settle down, old and uneven and Ryan can already feel where the edge of one is sticking up _just_ enough to jab him through his sleeping bag, knows it’s going to wake him up or otherwise leave him aching by tomorrow morning.

There’s a little series of rituals they have; Shane sets his glasses carefully beside his head, within arm’s reach, but not close enough to roll over onto in the night. Ryan checks his phone battery, then his flashlight battery, then his GoPro battery, then his flashlight battery again, because the last time they slept somewhere it had run out when he woke up at four in the morning, and he’d nearly jumped out of his skin when Shane had tapped his arm to see what was going on. They both shuffle around in their sleeping bags, getting as comfortable as their legroom and the floorboards will allow.

“Night,” Ryan says.

Shane huffs a breath, rolls onto his side, says, “Sleep tight.” A beat, and then, “Don’t let the ghosties bite.”

“Shut _up,_ Shane.”

Then it’s quiet, and Ryan stares at the ceiling, or at least, the darkness where he knows, logically, the ceiling is, tries to ignore the shapes dancing in front of his eyes, tries to ignore the miniscule creaks of the floor every time he shifts. After some length of time, maybe ten minutes, maybe more, he notices that Shane’s breathing has gone heavy, throaty and halfway to a snore in the way that means he’s out for the count, and Ryan sighs. He thinks, _I’m not gonna be able to fall asleep,_ because he _can’t_ fall asleep in places like this, empty-but-not, dusty old houses that loom menacingly over him like a gaping maw waiting to snatch him up as soon as his eyes are shut.

_Hope I’m not too tired to drive,_ he thinks, inanely, and then.

He blinks and feels different, woozy, heavier in the throat, sore at the base of his spine where he wasn’t before, and he thinks, _did I sleep?,_ reaching blindly for his phone, squinting against the harsh glare when he finally finds it.

3 AM, the screen reads. He’s slept three hours. It’s a pleasant surprise, but an unnerving one, because he’s woken up at the Witching Hour and _why, oh god, why, what’s here with me,_ and then hears the rustling of nylon on wood and a loud breath, choked and a little snuffly, and he exhales with palpable relief because Shane’s doing his weird chainsaw snoring, and that _always_ wakes him up. He turns his phone screen facing Shane, watches the rise and fall of his breathing for, count the beats, one, two, three, until it’s 3:03 AM and Ryan feels his chest go loose. He always feels like a little kid, doing this, waking up in the middle of the night during a sleepover to check that everyone’s breathing, that nobody’s died in the night, that he’s not lying next to a corpse.

Admittedly, he was a weird kid.

He lies back down slowly, wincing at the way the floor creaks and gives beneath him, at the way his back cracks in protest. He curls up on his side this time, trying to ignore the early-morning nausea settling into his stomach alongside the ever-present anxiety.

Shane snores, then seems to choke, stop breathing for a second, then starts up again, like the false start of a lawnmower. Ryan half-remembers an article he read about sleep apnea, has half a thought to bring it up to Shane in the morning, then thinks, _ah, shit, I probably won’t get back to sleep,_ then closes his eyes, and then.

They’re in the Sallie House, or maybe the ruins of Keddie Cabin, or maybe his room on the Queen Mary, and it’s coming for him and he can’t move and he’s going to die and he’s going to die and he’s going to die and his chest is aching and heaving and he’s trying to look around for Shane and he’s not, he’s not, and he knows Shane’s dead hasn’t seen him but he _knows_ and there’s a broken sound torn from his throat and he wants to scream but he’s empty and dying and dead and.

Blinks. Breathes. Can’t think but knows what he needs and he’s reaching blindly out until his hand hits puffy fabric and he pats, makes noises like a toddler wanting attention until there’s a shifting and rolling over and Shane’s voice, muggy, says, “Mmng?” Ryan feels stupid, can’t seem to make his throat open up enough for words but manages to croak something approximating “Okay?”, and there’s more shifting in the dark and then an arm is patting blindly in his general direction, finds Ryan’s hand in the space between them and grips, and Shane, still half-asleep, goes “Mmhm.”

Ryan holds onto Shane like a lifeline and makes some kind of affirmative sound in his throat and listens for a minute, two, three, as Shane’s breathing goes heavy and his fingers go limp in Ryan’s, and Ryan’s whole body is still warm in the just-woke-up way, the way that tempts him back to sleep so easily and he lets himself go down and then.

Jarring, incoherent flashes, sitting up and thinks he’s awake but that’s probably not right because it’s dark in the house, he shouldn’t be able to see, shouldn’t be able to see that dog where’s the dog? Shane’s got the dog, back in California, back home, he should try to get there, _hope I’m not too tired to drive,_ he’ll catch the bus if he can remember the password, and then.

Blinks for a second, trying to follow the threads of a dream that made sense while he was having it but now he’s forgotten it all, and his stomach’s heavy and he can feel Shane pressed heavy up against his back, they’ve rolled towards each other in the night and he’s going under again, wonders if he’ll sleep til morning this time and then.

The breath is wrenched out of him like he’s taken a bad fall, and he’s lying down and watching because he can’t move he can’t move he _can’t move_ but Shane’s up, standing in front of him but hunched over like he’s about to pounce, and there’s a noise coming out of his chest, of his _throat,_ a growl that shakes something horrible and when Ryan’s eyes try to look past him to see what Shane’s growling _at_ his eyes seem to slide over the other side of the room, some mass in the doorway that makes his vision swim. His ears are rushing like there’s water in them but he’s catching snatches, Shane’s talking, “you will _not-”_ and a laugh, or a snarl, and someone, something else, _“you’ll have to make me,”_ and he blinks, opens his mouth, and then.

Loses time, he thinks, because he’s panting and scrambling to sit up and Shane’s kneeling beside him, and oh, shit, must be morning because Ryan can see him by some grey, pre-dawn light coming through the murky window, and his eyes catch on a forming bruise above Shane’s eyebrow, on the way his eyes are shifting, the way Ryan suddenly can’t remember what colour they’re supposed to be and can’t quite think straight, but Shane’s got a hand on his shoulder and another rubbing across his head, repetitive and soothing, so Ryan just leans into it, letting a breath out.

“Okay?” Shane says, voice light in the way it only is when Ryan’s not quite awake, when he’s had a night terror and Ryan lets his eyes close, says, “Mhm.”

“Still an hour til’ we’ve gotta be up,” he hears, distantly, but he’s already lying back down, already going back under with water in his ears, and then.

He’s awake, watching sunlight proper streaming onto the floorboards, catching in Shane’s hair where he’s poring over one of their cameras. There’s a beat, two, three, where the silence sits comfortably between them, and then Shane notices Ryan staring, and smiles crookedly.

“Hey, bud!” And the goofy, showman’s voice is back, “How’d ya sleep?”

Ryan shrugs, still groggy, but making his way towards the land of the living. “Fine? Better than usual. I think. Like, two nightmares? But no ghosts, I think.”  
  
Shane snorts, and says, “Well you only woke me up with _one,_ so I’m counting that as a personal victory. Praise the fucking lord, Ryan Bergara let me get some sleep last night.”   
  
Ryan’s smiling, laughing, even as he thinks, _that’s not right, you were up with me twice,_ but there’s not a bruise on Shane’s face, and his eyes are brown and he’s forgetting the specifics like sand falling between his fingers, so he shakes off the unease as he stands up and stretches, laughs along with Shane’s Old Man Bergara jokes when every bone in his back cracks loudly.

They bid the house farewell, and then.

At the airport, Shane’s tweeting something obnoxious and Ryan is poring over the footage from the cameras, keeps repeating the hour between five and six AM, not sure what he’s looking for. Maybe tossing and turning through his nightmare, maybe Shane getting up, maybe, maybe maybe, but there’s nothing, it’s so _static,_ and he squints at Shane’s chest rising and falling under the sleeping bag, the way he shifts and turns his head and then ten minutes later does it again, and thinks, _looped, the footage is on a loop here, what the fuck,_ and Shane claps his shoulder, scaring Ryan out of his fucking skin.

“Let’s get hot dogs!” And nope, Ryan’s already caught up in this, already half-forgetting about the footage, shoving Shane’s shoulder and saying, “Let’s _not,_ I’m not dealing with you half-shitting yourself on a five hour flight, big guy,” and he steers them towards a _proper_ junky airport restaurant, and then.

He’s sitting at his desk with his fingers massaging his temples because the SD card for the overnight footage has decided to go and fucking wipe itself, and it was _fine_ on his laptop in the fucking airport, and he’s swearing and stressed and halfway to crying and vowing that he’s gonna back up everything twice from now on, and then there are hands on his shoulders rubbing slow, soothing circles and Shane says, “Hey, hey, dude, it’s cool. It’s cool. You’ve got the vlog footage from the morning, and you can say the ghosts busted your camera out of spite.”   
  
In spite of himself, Ryan laughs, and mutters, “And you’ll say I’m crazy for blaming a busted camera on ghosts?”

He can _hear_ Shane’s shit-eating grin when he says, “Well, _yeah,_ someone’s got to be the voice of reason.”

And then.

Shane’s right, of course, the episode is fine, good, pretty _great_ actually, and much later when it’s aired and they’re piling into their little set for the Postmortem, Shane raises an eyebrow at his phone with a wry little smile and reads, “From Gramtown, at-mikey-jonesey says, ‘who thinks Shane messed with the cameras while Ryan was sleeping, getting rid of any evidence of paranormal stuff that happened during the night, hashtag-Boogaras, hashtag-we-know-you’re-a-demon-Shane.’ _Wow.”_ He’s laughing, and Ryan should be too, probably, because it’s _stupid_ and he should expect better from his little following, except, _should he?_ And Shane’s eyes are brown-yellow-blue-something and there’s a spot above his eyebrow where he keeps trying to look but his eyes keep sliding off of it, so Ryan looks dead at the camera and says altogether too seriously,

“You know, Mikey? I think you might be absolutely right.”

**Author's Note:**

> man the last rpf fandom i was in was polygon shipping, so it is fucking wild not having to hide from using the main tags
> 
> anyways catch me @heybatterbatter on tumblr if you care to, i'm around sometimes


End file.
